By R.L. Bynum
CHARLOTTE — Michael Malone’s coaching philosophy is less a product of one mentor than a collection of lessons gathered over a 25-year NBA career.
His father helped shape him as a person and coach. Jeff Van Gundy taught him the value of preparation, attention to detail and defense. Mike Brown gave him the freedom to coach and showed him the importance of trusting a staff.
But Gregg Popovich might have had the most profound influence.
Malone met Popovich in 2005 while participating in an NBA Basketball Without Borders program in Argentina. The relationship became a pivotal one in Malone’s coaching career, with Popovich recommending him that year to Mike Brown, who hired Malone as a Cleveland assistant.
“I wouldn’t have gotten the job in Cleveland without Gregg Popovich. I wouldn’t have gotten the head job in Sacramento without Gregg Popovich,” Malone said Wednesday during ACC Tipoff at the Hilton Charlotte Uptown.
Popovich’s influence went beyond helping Malone advance his career. After Sacramento hired Malone for his first head coaching job in 2013, Popovich called him with advice about how to handle the job and, more importantly, how to handle himself.
“ ‘Listen, you’re Irish, you’re fiery, you’re emotional. Be true to yourself. Make sure your players know you love them, because that’s the only way you can be that way,’ ” Malone remembers Popovich telling him.
That has become an important part of Malone’s approach at North Carolina, where he has spent his first months trying to establish a program and relationships with players who are considerably younger than the professionals he coached for most of his career.
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— Malone leans on Carolina basketball tradition in many ways
— Although Fens won’t play, UNC’s exhibition with USC will show Malone ‘where we’re at’
— UNC’s men play four 9 p.m. games, three at noon; home men’s, women’s games overlap on Dec. 6
— Malone has lead guard group of ‘connectors’ with nobody called point guard
— Video, transcript of press conference for UNC at ACC Tipoff, plus long Malone breakout room interviews
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Malone said that he does not believe that means changing who he is. He said he refuses to put on an act when recruits visit practice because he doesn’t want players or parents to see one version of him during recruiting and another once they are in the program.
“That’s one thing about me. When we bring guys to practice, I don’t put on an act. I don’t say, ‘Well, I have to be in my best behavior today,’ because I don’t want them showing up and saying, ‘Where was that guy last year?’ So I’m me. I’m authentic,” Malone said.
“Some people are going to love that, and some people may not like that, but they’re going to know who the hell I am and what I’m about,” he said. “And I think the parents appreciate that authenticity. And the one thing I’ve heard from a lot of people that come to campus on visits is that, for whatever reason, we make everybody feel very comfortable. We’re relatable. We don’t have all the answers. We’re gonna work our butts off, and we’re gonna have a lot of fun doing it because you can do both.”
That approach is rooted in a coaching philosophy that has evolved as Malone has moved through the stages of his career.
What Van Gundy told him as a young coach played out for Malone: that a coach’s philosophy can encompass almost everything. Experience gradually strips that away until a coach is left with the principles he genuinely believes in.
“You get older and you mature and you kind of figure out who the hell you want to be,” Malone said. “That narrows and that narrows into things that you relate to and you believe in in your soul. And for me, obviously, my father [had a] tremendous impact on me as a person, as a coach, as a father — all those things.”
Van Gundy was an important part of that process. In Malone’s first NBA assistant coaching job, he worked for Van Gundy briefly in New York in 2001, and absorbed his emphasis on preparation and defense, lessons Malone has carried through his stops in Cleveland, Denver, Sacramento and now Chapel Hill.
Mike Brown also left a lasting imprint, particularly in how Malone thinks about his coaching staff. Brown, the Cavaliers’ head coach when Malone was an assistant there from 2005 to 2010, gave Malone considerable freedom, and Malone wants his assistants to have that same opportunity to contribute.
“That’s something I’ve taken everywhere I’ve been since Cleveland,” Malone said of the amount of freedom Brown gave him to coach. “If trust is a part of our culture, I’ve got to make sure I’m trusting my coaching staff, and give them a voice and empower them. Something that I do here, just like I’ve done in Denver and Sacramento.”
Malone has tried to bring those lessons together rather than simply duplicate one of his mentors.
He learned from Popovich, Van Gundy, Brown, Monty Williams and others, but the goal has been to develop a philosophy that fits him and the players he has at UNC.
That philosophy places a premium on players who make everyone around them better. Malone calls them “connectors,” a concept he saw repeatedly during his NBA career.
When Malone and his staff evaluated players for the UNC roster, talent was only part of the equation. They wanted players who would share the ball, compete and understand that individual success is secondary to the team.
“Connectors are guys that make their teammates better,” Malone said. “And when you look at my 25 years in the NBA, I was around and learned from tremendous talent, some of the best players to ever play, and five years as assistant coach in Cleveland, watching LeBron James and how he was a connector and made everybody better. Coaching Nikola Jokić for 10 years in Denver, seeing him make everyone around him better, lead us to a championship.”
That concept is central to Malone’s definition of a championship team. He does not dismiss talent. In fact, he calls it a given for a team with championship aspirations. But he said that teams separate themselves when they are willing to sacrifice individual interests.
“Talent is a given. If we want to be a team that can compete for a championship, talent is a given. But what’s also important is bringing in players that understand the importance of being selfless in everything they do, getting over yourself, that we can accomplish a hell of a lot more as a team than as a bunch of individuals. So players that are connectors, players that are competitors,” he said
That lesson is particularly relevant as Malone adjusts to college basketball.
The biggest difference between coaching in the NBA and college, he said, is not the basketball itself. It is everything surrounding the basketball. In the NBA, Malone could concentrate almost entirely on coaching. At UNC, recruiting, fundraising, relationship-building and other responsibilities compete for his attention.
“In the NBA, all you do is coach. It’s all basketball. In college, the last thing you get to do is coach,” Malone said. “You’re doing so many other things to kind of build your program.”
The court remains where Malone is most comfortable, though.
Once he gets his players in the gym, he can return to the part of the job that has defined his career: teaching, developing and demanding improvement.
Malone also has had to recalibrate his expectations for the players he is coaching. His first instinct after arriving at UNC was to evaluate them with the standards he had developed in the NBA. He quickly realized he needed to remember that many of his players are still teenagers or barely into their 20s.
That has meant spending more time individually with players, being patient and understanding that development will not always happen on an NBA timetable.
“I have to remind myself once again,” Malone said. “I use this story all the time. The first time I was at recruiting, I had my NBA eyes, and I had to retrain and take into account, to your point, that these are 17–18-year-old kids.”
He has enjoyed that part of the transition, even as he learns the differences between developing college players and coaching established professionals.
Malone also wants his players to eventually take ownership of the standards he is establishing. He knows a team cannot rely on its coach to provide all of the accountability once the season begins.
“I told them just the other day, if that’s always coming from me, we’re only going so far,” Malone said. “I think the best teams I’ve ever been a part of, the players get to a place where they can hold each other accountable, they can police each other.”
That development is still taking place at UNC. Malone has emphasized building habits rather than simply getting through practices, knowing that the payoff from those habits will come much later in the season.
He does not want his players talking about becoming a championship team nearly as much as he wants them working in a way that could eventually make that possible.
“The intentionality is for us to get better every day. The intentionality is to make sure we are building winning habits, and not just getting through practice, but actually getting something out of practice,” Malone said.
“And if you can stack enough days where you get better every day, come conference tournament, come postseason play, then you really have a chance to do something special,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’d much rather be about it, and I think there’s a huge difference.”
This approach reflects the lessons Malone has learned from the coaches who came before him.
Popovich taught him that authenticity only works if players know their coach cares about them. Van Gundy reinforced the importance of preparation and defense. Brown showed him how much a coach can accomplish by trusting the people around him.
Malone now has to turn those lessons into his program at Carolina, where the players are younger, the job is broader and the expectations are familiar — but in a new environment.
Instead of becoming Popovich, Van Gundy or Brown, he’s become the coach their influence helped him become.
UNC schedule
| Date | Time | Month/day | Opponent/event (final ranks) | TV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| October | Exhibitions | |||
| 9 | 7 p.m. | Friday | vs. USC in Greensboro | ACCN |
| 18 | 5 p.m. | Sunday | vs. Indiana in Indianapolis | B1G+ * |
| 27 | 7:30 | Tuesday | vs. Charlotte | ACCN Extra |
| November | Regular season | |||
| 2 | 7 p.m. | Monday | vs. Western Carolina | ACCN |
| 6 | 7 p.m. | Friday | vs. Wofford | ACCN |
| 10 | 7 p.m. | Tuesday | vs. Wyoming | ACCN |
| 13 | 7 p.m. | Friday | vs. Georgia | ESPN2 |
| 20 | 9 p.m. | Friday | vs. Marshall | ACCN |
| 23 | 7 p.m. | Monday | vs. Monmouth | ACCN |
| 27 | 7 p.m. | Friday | Dick Vitale Invitational vs. West Virginia in Charlotte | ESPN |
| December | ||||
| 1 | 7:30 | Tuesday | ACC/SEC Challenge vs. No. 13 Arkansas | ESPN |
| 6 | 3 p.m. | Sunday | vs. Butler | ESPN2 |
| 12 | Noon | Saturday | at Georgetown | Peacock |
| 15 | 7 p.m. | Tuesday | Tobacco Road Classic vs. N.C. State in Greensboro | ESPN2 |
| 19 | 2:30 | Saturday | CBS Sports Classic vs. Kentucky in New York | CBS |
| 21 | 8 p.m. | Monday | vs. The Citadel | The CW |
| 30 | 4 p.m. | Wednesday | vs. California | ACCN |
| January | ||||
| 2 | 4 p.m. | Saturday | at Boston College | ESPN or ESPN2 |
| 5 | 9 p.m. | Tuesday | at Louisville | ESPN or ESPNU |
| 9 | Noon | Saturday | vs. N.C. State | ESPN2 |
| 13 | 7 p.m. | Wednesday | at Florida State | ESPN2 or ESPNU |
| 16 | 2:15 | Saturday | vs. Stanford | The CW |
| 19 | 9 p.m. | Tuesday | vs. No. 17 Virginia | ESPN |
| 23 | Noon | Saturday | at Syracuse | ESPN or 2 or U |
| 26 | 7 p.m. | Tuesday | vs. SMU | ESPN or ESPN2 |
| 30 | 6 or 6:30 | Saturday | Nashville Hoops Showdown vs. No. 5 Illinois in Nashville, Tenn. | ESPN |
| February | ||||
| 2 | 7 p.m. | Tuesday | at Notre Dame | ESPN or ESPN2 |
| 6 | 2:15 | Saturday | vs. Georgia Tech | The CW |
| 8 | 6 p.m. | Monday | vs. Louisville | ESPN |
| 13 | 5:30 | Saturday | at No. 4 Duke | ABC |
| 20 | 7 p.m. | Saturday | at Wake Forest | ACCN |
| 22 | 7 p.m. | Monday | vs. No. 24 Miami | ESPN |
| 27 | 7 p.m. | Saturday | at Virginia Tech | ESPN |
| March | ||||
| 2 | 9 p.m. | Tuesday | at Pittsburgh | ESPN or ESPN2 |
| 6 | 6 or 6:30 | Saturday | vs. No. 4 Duke | ESPN |
| 9–13 | Tues.-Sat. | ACC tournament in Greensboro |
| No. | Class | Player | Pos. | Hgt | Wgt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | Freshman | Maximo Adams (MAX-ih-mo) | F | 6–7 | 220 |
| 30 | Freshman | Malloy Smith | G | 6–5 | 180 |
| 21 | Freshman | Sayon Keita (SIGH-on KAY-tuh) | C | 7–0 | 205 |
| 5 | Freshman | Kevin Thomas | W | 6–6 | 205 |
| 35 | Sophomore | Cade Bennerman — U | C | 7–0 | 205 |
| 17 | Sophomore | Neo Avdalas — W (NEE-oh ahv-DOLL-lus) | G | 6–9 | 220 |
| 2 | Sophomore | Isaiah Denis | G | 6–4 | 185 |
| 3 | Sophomore | Matt Able — X | G | 6–5 | 200 |
| 22 | Junior | Alex Samodurov (SAH-muh-DUHR-off) | C | 6–11 | 225 |
| 1 | Senior | Terrence Brown — Y | G | 6–3 | 180 |
| 4 | Senior | Jaydon Young (JAY-din) | G | 6–4 | 200 |
| 15 | Senior | Jarin Stevenson (JARE-in) | F | 6–10 | 220 |
| 14 | Graduate | Angelo Brizzi — Z (BRIZZ-ee) | G | 6–3 | 200 |
| 54 | Graduate | Cameron Fens — V (Fenz) | C | 7–0 | 255 |
| Walk-ons | |||||
| 99 | Junior | John Holbrook — SA | F | 6–8 | 230 |
| 32 | Senior | Evan Smith | G | 6–1 | 200 |
V — South Dakota transfer; U — Northwestern transfer; W — Virginia Tech transfer; X — N.C. State transfer; Y — Utah transfer; Z — Buffalo transfer; SA — Holbrook is a designated student-athlete, so he doesn’t count against UNC’s 15-player limit.
Coach Michael Malone’s coaching staff — Associate head coach Chuck Martin; assistant coaches Bryan Tibaldi (tih-BALL-dee), Sean May, Jorge Sanz (HOR-hey sahnth), Pat Sullivan and Brandon Robinson; Director of player development Deon Thompson.
Former players at other schools
| Player | Class | Pos. | Hgt | Wgt | Next school |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luka Bogavac | Senior | W | 6–6 | 215 | Oklahoma State |
| James Brown | Senior | C | 6–10 | 240 | Howard |
| Derek Dixon | Sophomore | G | 6–5 | 200 | Arizona |
| Kyan Evans | Senior | G | 6–2 | 175 | Minnesota |
| Zayden High | Junior | C | 6–10 | 230 | South Florida |
| Jonathan Powell | Junior | G | 6–6 | 190 | Pittsburgh |
| Ivan Matlekovic | Junior | C | 7–0 | 255 | Pacific |
Photo via @UNC_Basketball
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